Thanks for the link Jonathan.
via Washington Post.
THERE IS NOT FUCKING WAY THE UAE NEEDS 4,000 plus MRAPS!
This is simply payment for services rendered. They talked the US President into fighting a war for them and this is how they pay him back. Refurbished MRAPS at the price for new ones and having US labor doing the work means an uptick in employment just in time to grease the numbers before the election.
Yeah, its cynical but nothing else makes sense.
via Washington Post.
The United States is close to a $2.5 billion deal with the United Arab Emirates that will send 4,569 mine-resistant vehicles to the Middle Eastern country as Washington wraps up its long war in Afghanistan.OK. This is pure speculation on my part and explains the title of this post.
The Pentagon announced the pending deal Friday. It calls for a foreign military sale of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, along with the necessary parts, equipment, training and logistical support.
“MRAPs,” as they are commonly known, are made by numerous manufacturers and have been commonly used in Iraq and Afghanistan to protect U.S. and coalition service members from improvised explosive devices buried in the roads. They were developed with a V-shaped armored hull to deflect bomb blasts.
The deal with the UAE, an Arab partner in airstrikes launched in Syria this week, calls for Washington to deliver mostly MaxxPro MRAPs made by Navistar Defense, a truck maker with headquarters in Lisle, Ill. Other principal contractors involved include BAE Systems of Sealy, Tex., and Oshkosh Defense in Oshkosh, Wis.
The vehicles would be refurbished and sold to the UAE as excess defense articles that were previously owned by the U.S. Army, officials said. Defense officials have said that they have been looking to sell excess MRAPs to partner nations for some time, but the scope of the deals were not clear.
THERE IS NOT FUCKING WAY THE UAE NEEDS 4,000 plus MRAPS!
This is simply payment for services rendered. They talked the US President into fighting a war for them and this is how they pay him back. Refurbished MRAPS at the price for new ones and having US labor doing the work means an uptick in employment just in time to grease the numbers before the election.
Yeah, its cynical but nothing else makes sense.
Usa really need some other type of fuel. Until them, you guys will be "puppets" into sheik -insert random arab name here-.
ReplyDeleteactually no. the US has begun EXPORTING oil now. we have more natural gas than we can use and we could produce even more if it wasn't for tree huggers in California and off the Northeast coast.
Deleteif not now, within a few years we could be energy independent.
Really? So... Wtf are you guys fighting their fight? Now I understand all your rage about this.
DeleteFurther more as a rule the USA's largest source of foreign oil is Canada... not the middle east
DeleteActually it's all about net flows of oil to different regional areas of North America rather than importing or exporting. The fundamental issues is that the pipeline infrastructure is both strong and weak depending on where you are in N.A. In eastern Canada we import oil because the pipeline capacity is not enough to supply the demand. To add to that, the pipelines going in Canada enter the US first in the US midwest and US refineries get first dibs on the oil, thus Canadian refineries need higher supply and import. Other Canadian oil travels south to Texas for US refineries. Other oil travels by tanker from BC or Alaska to other west coast based refineries. At this point Canada only exports to the US and thus does not get world price for the oil and has to sell it for less (which is good for the US). The bottom line is oil energy flows have many +/- to them. Both the US and Canada import and export oil, however Canada is technically self sufficient while the US is close but quite there yet (90+%). Also, middle east oil is now only a small percentage of the oil that North America needs. Both Europe and Asia are the most exposed to M.E. oil.
DeleteThe bottom line really, whether we like it or not, if the pipeline infrastructure is sufficient to feed all regions of North America, only then can we so no to all M.E. oil.
Frakking is another financial scam/bubble in action. Most frakked natgas wells dry up in less than a year without re-frakking. Whilst polluting aquafers.
DeleteThere is more oil being produced in the USA now, but it's still a net inflow from the middle east.
The US and Russia have never had a direct interest in Middle Eastern Oil.
ReplyDeleteThe reason they fought over it was secondary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production#mediaviewer/File:Top_Oil_Producing_Counties.png
The USSR and Russia were fiinanced by oil exports, contrary to popular opinion, Russia is the worlds largest oil producer.
But, Russian energy is expensive to extract, so they need high oil prices to make a profit and finance the regime.
The easiest way to increase oil prices, is to decrease supply.
Provoke a war in the middle east between Israel and Egypt, and the arab states shut down the pumps.
Oil prices spike, and the USSR make a mint.
The US later convinces Saudi to let the spice flow, and the USSR buckles within a few years.
That the US needs to steal middle eastern oil is one of the many lies the apologists for the USSR have entered into accepted truth
well, that's how things work, my country had to pay Tony Blair, Bechtel etc for entering NATO, Barosso for politcal protection for individuals now contracts for Exxon, Chevron, Hallyburton, for the US "umbrela" and so on, is the world we live in, "contracts" are the new thing, minorities are also a tool which is just on standby, be it the 1mil hungarians be it the 1mil gypsies, as they did in the 90's and later on, funny, the minorities tool is used in perfect harmony be it by rusia or NATO/EU, even at the same time...
ReplyDeleteThe more MRAPs we sell to them the fewer our own nation's police departments can get. I have no complaints.
ReplyDeleteThe other in the energy flow is that oil is a commodity and electricity is a utility. To get oil closer to a utility in nature we need to the pipeline infrastructure to feed all regions equally just as we have electrical grids serving those regions. This should be a national priority in both Canada and the US because energy security can become an internal issue rather than always having to run off to the next banana republic "flare up" zone. The other side of making oil more of a utility than commodity is that regulation will change. Instead of market price which is manipulated through trading and futures practices, the price would them become more stable. Naturally energy companies and others would fight against this because it would obviously mean less potential profit or ability to manipulate profit.
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons why electric car future potential is so critical to the average person is not because it's "green" it's because the energy flow is utility based and thus price stabilized vs oil based transportation.
I would not be surprised to see these things ending up in Qatar next, then eventually showing up as part of ISIS, to replace all those Hi-Luxs with Dishkas, once nobody's looking anymore.
ReplyDeleteIn a global market, it doesn't matter where a specific barrel of oil actually comes from. All that matters is the effect of total supply on the spot price of the market. Find a new source anywhere and the prices will go down globally, even if that supply only actually feeds one country.
ReplyDelete